


You've got no hips to shake

by Ship_theboybands



Series: Lola Who Is A Girl [1]
Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: Gen, Michael-centric, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, gender feels, luke being perfect, mtf michael
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-09 00:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3230087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ship_theboybands/pseuds/Ship_theboybands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The walls of the room are green, and everyone inside it knows that Michael is not a boy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You've got no hips to shake

Michael feels like lego someone assembled incorrectly.

Michael feels like there’s bugs in his veins instead of blood.

Michael feels like hiding from the world until it goes away, but instead there’s an interview.

There’s a couch and an armchair and a nervous looking reporter lady with purple hair. And there’s Ashton’s hand on his lower back, and Luke giving him concerned eyebrows, and this isn’t the first time he’s grinned and bared it.

They all introduce themselves, and then a camera’s turned on, and they do it again, and Michael watches a burly man over by the door drop his spoon into his cup of tea and try to fish it out.

“So, Michael, how about you?” 

Michael thinks: _how about me?_

It’s a good question.

“Oh, Michael’s a bit of a ladies man,” Calum chimes in, smoothing over the awkward beat of silence that had followed. 

“No he’s not,” Ashton laughs. And he’s not. He’s not really an anyone’s man at the moment. 

Michael’s cringing and he doesn’t know why. Or he does, but he’s trying very hard to ignore it. Or something like that.

And then there’s more questions, and more answers, and the burly man cursing when he inevitably spills hot tea down the front of his shirt, and then there’s a car, and a mob at the hotel, and then Michael’s stood in front of the mirror with the tap running just staring.

 

It’s all wrong. He feels all wrong. He runs his wet fingers over the lines of his shoulders. He closes his eyes and tries not to cry. His name doesn’t fit, none of it _fits_.

He blinks hard and opens his eyes and knows that if he doesn’t tell someone he’s going to die. If something doesn’t shift and change he’s going to crumble in on himself.

 

“Michael, you ready man?” Luke’s voice lands in the silence, like Michael’s teeth, snapping shut, biting at the inside of his cheek. He hovers at the doorframe, and their eyes lock in the mirror.

“You okay?” Stupid question. Even stupider answer. Michael falling,resting his head on Luke’s shoulder, Michael letting him know. It falls out of him like something he dropped.

 

“I’m not… I’m not a boy,” He whispers, muffled by Luke’s shoulder, “I tried, I really did, but I can’t.”

There is a long and terrible moment where the clock ticks on the wall and the water runs down the drain and they both breathe in and out.

“Oh,” Luke says, finally, hands pushing at Michaels shoulders until he’s nestled against his chest, arms wrapping around his back, “Okay, that’s okay.”

It’s everything he wants to hear, and nothing he believes, and the light’s humming, buzzing, like things are going to be okay.

 

The walls of the room are green, and everyone inside it knows that Michael is not a boy and that she doesn’t want them to call her by her name any more but can’t think of anything different that fits.

“I love Grace,” Calum says, who wasn’t asked to suggest something, and who’d told Michael that he still loved her, even if he didn’t really get it at first.

“That doesn’t fit,” Ashton insists, shaking his head. He’s holding Michael’s hand, hasn’t really let go of it since she told him, hasn’t stopped kicking himself for not noticing something was wrong.

“I think she has to pick it herself,” Luke frowns quietly from where he’s perched on her lap.

“I mean, Michelle is the-” Ashton starts.

“ _Absolutely not_ ,” Michael interrupts him.

 

She does a lot of online research. She reads articles and watches videos and calls her doctor, speaking in hushed tones like she’s scared someone might hear.

 

“Lola,” She whispers to herself, in the dark, in the middle of the night. She says it again. The two syllables roll around her mouth, off her tongue, into the black of the night.

It’s been running around her head for weeks, and it’s perfect. It’s been running around her head and she’s been chasing it for years, her whole life, probably. She just hadn’t been ready for other people to hear it too.

It’s who she is, she knows it is, it’s just scary pinning it down. It’s scary leaving Michael behind, because as miserable as he’d been, he’s all she really knows. 

She runs her fingers over her bare shoulders, down her collar bones.

 _Lola_.

 

She dyes her hair Lilac again, and brushes it into a middle parting. It falls to about the middle of her ears and doesn’t look quite how she wants it yet. She’s going to grow it to her chin and cut it into a bob and it isn’t going to make her any more girl than she already is but it’s going to look lovely.

 

“Lola,” She tells Luke. They’re laying on the couch, her head on his stomach, legs dangling off the arm rest. He’s carding his fingers through her damaged hair, and they don’t stop. He hums, an agreeable note that hangs in the air for a moment longer than it needs to. 

“Lola,” Luke repeats, never stilling his fingers, appreciating the seriousness of the conversation without letting the atmosphere be anything but relaxed, “I really like that.”

 

She calls her parents, before anything else can change. She cries down the phone until her throat feels like candle wax, and wraps herself in her mothers voice like a blanket. Memorises the way it sounds to be accepted by the two most important people in her life.

 

“Hey, Lola, pass me a water?” Ashton calls from where he’s scrolling, zombified, through his instagram.

“Who?” 

Ashton drops his phone. Their stage manager is frowning, looking around like there’s someone in the room he’s missing.

“Sure,” Lola says, voice cracking a little. She grabs the bottle and her hands shake a little. Ashton’s eyes are wide and apologetic so she smiles at him.

The stage manager opens his mouth like he’s going to say something before deciding against it.

“You’re on in five,” He shrugs.

 

She buys makeup. She’s always wanted makeup. She draws dark purple on her lips and cat flicks on her eyes. She puts powder on her skin and even gets pretty good at it, after a while. She washes it off, for the most part, before leaving the room, but she feels like it’s waiting. Ready.

 

**Lola Clifford**  
_@Lola5sos_

It’s a pretty bold and stupid way of going about it, but Lola’s pretty bold and stupid herself. She decides to just be herself.

 

The kids still scream along to their songs. The clock still ticks on the wall.

 

“So, Michael, there’s been a lot of press about you recently, care to comment?” 

“Uh, It’s Lola, actually,” She mumbles, fiddling with the bracelets on her wrist, twisting them like her gut is.

“Oh, right, sorry, Lola, care to comment?”

The interviewer’s wearing a dark purple suit. He looks like the kind of guy who should be in a band.

“Uh, yeah, so I’m transgender. Which means, like, I was assigned male at birth and stuff but I’m a girl,” She shrugs, the warm presence of her band sat around her like a force field. Her voice shakes like she’s an earthquake, like she’s heavy lifting.

“Wow, well I’m sure that’s going to mean a lot to many trans people, especially the kids,” He smiles warmly. Smiles like he means it.

Luke’s fingers run through her hair and she leans into his hand.

 

She swallows the Estrogen pill and closes her eyes for a moment. She imagines it slipping down her throat and into her system, imagines is glowing purple, working like magic.

 

_WTF!?!? Michaels a transvestite?? worst day ever:((_

_why are the cute one’s always gay D:_

_this is really weird…_

“Hey, don’t do that,” Luke locks her phone screen with one hand, the other wrapping around her waist slowly. She wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand and Luke turns her around so her face is pressed into his neck. She sobs into his shoulder. The lights are humming.

The stage lights are humming. The screaming has died down. Her hair is finally down to her chin, fringe falling chunky and soft just above her eyebrows. High waisted black skinny jeans, halter neck crop top. Eyes painted black, lips painted purple, guitar hanging low on her hips. She croons into her microphone like she always has, but this time she feels ethereal. She feels gorgeous. She feels like something she wants pictures of.

 

She’s still transitioning, still not entirely happy, but she’s standing in front of the world feeling for the first time like she wants them to see.

 

And Luke kisses her like she’s just as splendid now as he’d always thought.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not trans myself, so if i've misrepresented or offended anyone pls yell at me in the comments.
> 
> title from Against Me!'s transgender dysphoria blues which is so so great.


End file.
